FORMAL EQUIVALENCE IN POETRY TRANSLATION

Within this study it is tested to see whether poetry translation possible or not, as well as to determine if beside semantic equivalence syntactic equivalence are obtained. Within these purposes two verses’ from Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust two English translations by B. Taylor's (1870 London), J. R. Williams (1999 Wordsworth) and two Turkish translations by N. Ülner (2000 Ankara) and Y. Pazarkaya (1999 Istanbul) are examined. Within this study N. Chomsky’s Universal Grammar Grammatik Model (IC), and Eugene A. Formal and dynamic equivalence theories are taken as a basis. The Study includes tree parts; introduction, Analyse and Conclusion. The purpose of the study, the scope of the method and approaches on the issue are given in the introduction. The main text includes syntactical and semantic analysis of sentences. By tree diagram technique the sentences are displayed to compare the syntactical structure of target text with source text and to see whether there are any semantic and formal losses within target language or not. After analysis of translated texts we reach following conclusions: 1. none of the four Faust translations has got formal equivalence 2. Instead of that there is dynamic equivalence in works. 3. In addition of loss of words there is loss of sentence, too. 4. Here the poetry translation is a re-writing process. In the light of the findings it is possible to argue that transferring a poem with its features like syntax, semantic, rhythm, meter, rhyme, stress and so on from one language to another is difficult and that therefore it is hard to find the taste of source text in poetry translations.